Christian Science enables its students to see how the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the grave was the inevitable result of his spiritual understanding of "the deep things of God." During his ministry among men he was constantly overcoming the conditions to which mankind was subject, sickness, sin, lack, and the like, by bringing that understanding to bear on them. And what did the overcoming show? The nothingness of the erroneous conditions, since it is impossible to destroy anything that is real. Mrs. Eddy writes of the Master (p. 39): "He overcame the world, the flesh, and all error, thus proving their nothingness. He wrought a full salvation from sin, sickness, and death."
The spiritual understanding which Jesus possessed embraced a knowledge of the real man. He knew that man is the son of God, spiritual and perfect, and that a mortal is a false or unreal concept of man. With this knowledge he refuted the lies of material sense, sometimes sternly rebuking them; and always with the aim of bringing out the real man. And how splendidly did his own spirituality stand out from the material sordidness shown by many of those among whom he moved! His high moral purpose, the purity of his thought, the intensity of his compassion, all alike testified to that spirituality which served to make him the Way-shower to the whole human race.
The Master's attainment was progressive. Every victory he won over materiality strengthened his purpose and prepared him for his final demonstration. The flesh might seem to assert itself against the Spirit, evil might appear to vaunt itself and claim the reality which good alone possesses, death might suggest itself as destructive of life, but none of the arguments of the carnal mind could weaken his faith in the Father, or undermine the assurance of spiritual victory which lay deep in his innermost consciousness. He knew that he had to prove to mankind the indestructibility of life, to demonstrate that as the Son of God he was immortal; and to that end he pursued his inspired and undeviating way. Our Leader writes (Science and Health, p. 292), "In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence of the reality."
